Leadership & Our Hub

Ian Smith

Ian founded The Portfolio Partnership (TPP) in 2009 and over the last eight years, Ian and his team have scaled over a dozen New England based businesses, many with overseas offices in Europe and Asia. Ian’s career covers a 30-year period of creating remarkable businesses in Europe and the U.S, including consumer magazines businesses with Thomson (now Thomson Reuters) as a divisional CFO, creating one of the first investment banking boutiques in London, building the FTSE 100 Capita Group and more recently turning around software businesses in Boston. He graduated from the University of Strathclyde and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Ian holds both US and UK citizenship. Unusually for a trained accountant, he is a huge fan of strong story telling, and has published seven books and around 500 blog posts, covering M&A, venture capital and entrepreneurship. A family man, he’s approaching his biggest achievement to date, 30 years happily married to Shona and being a dad to his two talented daughters Emily and Megan. To relax, he competes as a track athlete at 400m and 800m and has maintained a top 20 masters world ranking since 2006!

The Hub

I founded The Portfolio Partnership in 2009 to help management fulfill their potential, to scale their business, safely, operationally aligned to their strategy, creating a predictable economic model. I’ve worked with amazing people, dedicated to improving the lives of customers. I know how tough and lonely the job of CEO or any C-Suite executive role can be. Scaling a business organically or by acquisition requires a plethora of strategic and operational skills. That’s why I’ve formalized the people I’ve worked with over the years to form The Hub. A special place, that represents a group of professional experts, with their own practices, that I know personally. I’ve grouped The Hub by expertise but importantly, they all possess a range of virtues you demand from your team: curiosity, respect, know-how, empathy, reliability and grit. Either individually or by collaborating in teams, they help clients scale their businesses organically or by acquisition using their unique skills. Check out their world-class resumes. Marketing, branding and PR expertise is comprehensively covered by Alison, Charlie and Walter. Finance, operations and M&A contains a deep bench of talent represented by John, Jim, Don and Geoff. Human Resources and payroll know-how is delivered by Megan.